Tom Daley makes moving LGBT statement after winning Commonwealth gold

13 April 2018, 10:58 | Updated: 13 April 2018, 11:05

Tom Daley wins fourth Commonwealth Gold

By Alice Westoby

Tom Daley had an important message to share after winning his fourth Commonwealth Games gold medal.

It was a great day for Team England yesterday at the Commonwealth Games as divers Tom Daley and Dan Goodfellow dived to Gold in the 10m synchro competition.

This is 23-year-old Tom Daley's fourth Commonwealth title, which will be great news for him after disappointment at the Rio Olympics last year.

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But Tom used yesterday's success as a platform to deliver an important LGBT message.

In his celebratory post on Twitter, he made a moving statement about LGBT rights for athletes competing in the Commonwealth and how proud he was to be able to compete as an openly gay athlete.

He said: "37 of the competing nations criminalise being LGBT+. I feel so lucky to be able to be openly who I am without worry. I hope one day every athlete from every nation in the commonwealth will be free to compete openly as who they are too!"

He accompanied the words with a selfie of him and teammate, Dan Goodfellow.

Many praised the young diver for using his sporting platform to raise awareness of the important changes that still need to be made around the world for rights of the LGBT community.

Let's hope that if more people like Tom use their profile to be vocal about LGBT issues things will eventually change.

Well said Tom!

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